President Obama’s advisers are about to recommend that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, should be prosecuted in a military tribunal, according to the Washington Post:
The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.
But this isn’t merely a tale of backtracking. This is a tale of yet more missed deadlines:
If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.
All of the sources of this information in the story are anonymous, but if true, this is not going to make it easy for Obama to rally that base of his.
